A Joy in the Hand Is Worth...

Cupped hands of alabaster stone, cupped as if they held water, but instead they hold a votive candle, and light glows throughout and billows from the palms.  My friend has this little statue near the entryway to her kitchen.  The first time I saw it, I caught my breath.  I knew an ancient vision (on my timeline anyway) was soon to come true.  But how does one gain a light-scarred hand?  And how does one turn such a thing into an offering, pools of light to a dark soul even as pools of water are given to a thirsty one?

Ann VosKamp crooked a finger.   Helped me see a direction to explore:

Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand.  In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy.  The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out.  Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless.  And for me, it's a cosmic-numbing notion that far eclipses this domestic moment.  It speaks to the whole of my life and the vision brands me: The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy--nothing else. --1000 Gifts

        

What do I want from this life?  What do I think I deserve?  Ann quotes Henry Ward Beecher to say, "A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves."  And this is simple, but it can stretch to a strain easily.  When the view expands to include shadows of things dancing beyond the grace of this life, beyond the grave of this life.  When the view says "only in death shall you truly possess me, if you can leave me alone until then and only observe and consider and anticipate, like a betrothed."  Then pride and joy and faith endure a different sort of smelting. 

"God does not give rights but imparts responsibilities
--response-abilities-- 
inviting us to respond to His love-gifts." 
So Ann says. 

That branding light in the hand was spoken over me.  So I dreamed the cross as a dance.  I dream the resurrection as an offering.
I choose to respond in this life according to the shadows dancing there--beyond the grave--though they resonate down into this life with a clutch-me-now winsomeness.
Because I really do believe all this.